


Like a Bird on the Wing

by Lucky107



Series: A Red, Red Rose [1]
Category: Hell on Wheels (TV)
Genre: 19th Century, Amputation, Doctor - Freeform, Gen, Graphic Description, Nurse - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-24
Updated: 2016-11-24
Packaged: 2018-09-02 00:27:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 900
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8644252
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lucky107/pseuds/Lucky107
Summary: 'Hell on Wheels', they call it in Chicago, but only after having ridden it does she feel so inclined to agree.
[Season 1]





	

**Author's Note:**

> The Skye Boat Song - Melinda Caroll - 2003

The sky is smoky grey, a thick mixture of soot and fast-approaching rain, when Bonnie Mae MacLeod steps down from the rain and her legs are still trembling from the vibration of the rails.

_Hell on Wheels_ , they call it in Chicago.

Only after having ridden the beast does she feel so inclined to agree.

_The way of the future._

Bonnie Mae isn’t in town ten minutes before she finds the doctor’s tent. It’s a crude structure with poles given to a steep lean in the wet, pasty mud and a flimsy white-once canvas. She picks her steps carefully, avoiding puddles with an obvious discolour, and she pulls back the loose tent flap to peek inside.

The interior of the tent is a vibrant shade of red and, before she has a chance to properly digest it, a man elbow-deep in a stranger’s blood asks, “A hand here, darlin’?”

He’s got both hands tight around the arm of a man in a very bad way—an amputee.

There’s a tourniquet, among an assortment of other tools, at the foot of the bed and she wastes no time fitting it onto what remains of the patient’s mangled arm, just above the elbow. She closes the tourniquet tight enough to bite into the man’s pale flesh, bulging on either side of the filthy leather strap.

“Very good,” the doctor acknowledges, patting Bonnie Mae’s shoulder on his way to fetch the hot iron. “You make sure he don’t start thrashin’ ‘round on me, you hear? He went out some time ago, but shock’s a funny business.”

As the doctor readies for cauterization, Bonnie Mae circles the cot and does what she can to distribute her weight evenly around his workspace. She’s not a big woman - in fact, she’s hardly a woman at all - so no sooner than when she places her hand onto the man’s limp shoulder does he spring to life. He bucks wildly against both Bonnie Mae and the old cot, threatening to throw her right over.

The rank smell of burning flesh clouds on the still air within the tent.

“Get a hold on 'im, girl!”

Bonnie Mae grits her teeth and, while all but straddling the patient, she manages to pin him back down onto the cot. This time his fight is met with a readier resistance, but it doesn’t last - before the doctor can finish the job, their patient is gone.

All of Bonnie Mae’s confidence escapes her in one pent-up sigh.

The doctor stands back from his handiwork and concludes, “Got here just in the nick of time, you did. This man may just live yet.”

 

In a matter of minutes the procedure is over and the sense of urgency is on a steady decline.

“What’s your name, darlin’?” The doctor asks loudly, as if to assure Bonnie Mae that he’s speaking to her despite his turned back. He’s still busy at work, cleaning the blood from his equipment with a filthy rag and a bucket of bloody water.

“Bonnie Mae MacLeod,” she says and it’s the first time the doctor catches her accent. She’s as Scottish as Scottish can be. “Just off the train today, sir.”

He laughs out loud at the revelation and Bonnie Mae humbly brushes a stray strand of auburn hair back from her face. She notices only after she’s done it that she’s just as much a mess as the doctor himself, but that’s going to be the way of life from now on.

As the adrenaline wears off, the loud crack of the bucket striking the wooden floorboards startles her.

“I’m Doctor Frederik van der Meulen, but folks 'round these parts just call me 'Doc’,” he says. “Seems you’ve had yourself quite an excitin’ first day, Miss Bonnie Mae, and I can’t help wonderin’ what a pretty little thing such as you’s doin’ all the way out here.”

“Was all of ten when we left Scotland,” Bonnie Mae explains. “Never considered anywhere’s else to be home, sir.”

“So, then where’d a rollin’ stone learn to do all that?” Doctor Van der Meulen gestures with a bloody hand towards their resting patient. The poorly-laid floorboards strain beneath his weight when he takes a step in her direction and that same blood-covered hand lands rough on her shoulder.

Bonnie Mae flinches.

The doctor laughs once more. “For Christ’s sake, darlin’, I ain’t tryin'a scare you. I’m just tryin'a put all the pieces together.”

His new assistant risks a glance up at his face, clean-shaven and rough with experience, before concluding his intentions to be sincere. “Me ma, mostly. Early on I learned so that I could deliver me brothers an’ me sister, but we was caught in Corydon when some man came tearin’ through an’ shot 'er up. Did what I could to save them folks when the smoke cleared; was there I realised I wasn’t just a midwife no more.”

“Ah,” Doctor Van der Meulen concludes. “You saw some action, too.”

“Sir?”

“Only trainin’ I ever received,” the doctor says candidly. “Never been to no school and never worked in no hospital, but I did what I could to save some folks, too. This… this is a rough job, darlin’, but if your work today’s any indication, I’m figurin’ you already know that.”

“Aye,” Bonnie Mae agrees, and she offers Doctor Van der Meulen a modest smile. “I reckon I do, sir.”


End file.
